Thankfully, while these indicators of actual effort to finance state school systems and participation rates in those systems didn’t matter in Round 2 either, the picks for Round 2 winners are somewhat – though not entirely – less offensive. I’ve highlighted in yellow with red type any cases where a Round 1 or 2 winner comes in 40th or lower on an indicator – Bottom 10. I’ve indicated in green with blue type, cases where states are in the Top 10. Sadly, there are far more bottom 10 cases than top 10 cases.

I would consider EFFORT and FAIRNESS to be the two key indicators here over which states have greatest control. A poor state could put up significant effort and still not raise significant funding (Mississippi). The only Round 2 winner state with no “bad” marks and many good ones is Massachusetts. Massachusetts scores well on fairness and overall funding level. Tennessee, from Round 1 is simply a disgrace! North Carolina is perhaps the weakest link in Round 2, along with Florida which ranks poorly but avoids the bottom ten on any measure, and Hawaii which makes the bottom 10 on measures less within the control of the state – coverage. But, Hawaii has inflicted significant damage on its already struggling public schooling system in recent years.

And here are a few interesting two-dimensional views of RttT Round 1 and Round 2 states. First, here’s a two-dimensional view of educational effort and spending level – spending for high poverty districts. The two are reasonably related. Effort explains about half of the variation in spending levels. States like North Carolina and Tennessee are low on effort and low on spending. States like Massachusetts are relatively high on spending, but average on effort. Rhode Island, Maryland, New York, and Ohio are above average on spending and effort. But spending level doesn’t guarantee that it’s spent – or distributed – fairly across wealthier and poorer districts.

Here’s a look at “fairness” and spending level. New York is high on spending level, but not so good on fairness. In New York State, wealthy districts in Westchester County and Long Island outspend much of the rest of the nation. But, poorer districts including New York City are largely left out, spending significantly less than the affluent suburbs. Then there are those wonderful states where higher poverty districts have slightly higher revenue per pupil than lower poverty ones, but for the most part – everyone is similarly deprived. These are the “you get nothing!” (reference to Willy Wonka in previous post) states and Tennessee tops that list! Even more depressing are the states where “you get nothing” in general, and you get less if you are poor. Those states include RttT Round 2 standout North Carolina … and Florida sits on the margin of this group. Massachusetts is the “good” standout in this figure.

And here’s effort and coverage – or the share of 6 to 16 year olds attending the public school system. New York, Maryland and Ohio (on the margin) do poorly on coverage, but have reasonable overall effort. Delaware is the real outlier here… with very low effort and very, very low coverage. Thankfully, none in Round 2 can match Delaware!

Finally, here is the state and local revenue predicted level for high poverty districts, and NAEP mean 2009, grade 4 reading and math scores (combined). It’s always fun to throw the outcome data in there. And in this case, the RttT Round 1 and Round 2 winners are distributed across the range. Again, Tennessee from Round 1 is the biggest “bad” outlier, but one could say that Massachusetts from Round 2 is a positive counterbalance. Clearly, the demography and economy of these two states differs significantly. My complaint with Tennessee is not that it performs poorly partly because it has a large, low-income population. Rather, my problem with Tennessee, as I’ve noted many previous times is that TN puts up little effort and spends little, and barely spends even that paltry amount equitably. In addition, as I’ve discussed previously, TN has consistently had the lowest outcome standards.

So then, who cares? or why should we? Many have criticized me for raising these issues, arguing “that’s not the point of RttT. It’s (RttT)not about equity or adequacy of funding, or how many kids get that funding. That’s old school – stuff of the past – get over it! This… This is about INNOVATION! And RttT is based on the ‘best’ measures of states’ effort to innovate… to make change… to reach the top!”

My response is that the above indicators measure Essential Pre-Conditions! One cannot expect successful innovation without first meeting these essential preconditions. If you want to buy the “business-minded” rhetoric of innovation, which I wrote about here , you also need to buy into the reality that the way in which businesses achieve innovation also involves investment in both R&D and production (coupled with monitoring production quality). You can have all of the R&D and quality monitoring systems in the world, but if you go cheap on production and make a crappy product – you haven’t gotten very far. On average, it does cost more to produce higher quality products.

This also relates to my post on common standards and the capacity to achieve them. It’s great to set high standards, but if don’t allocate the resources to achieve those standards, you haven’t gotten very far! It costs more to achieve high standards than low ones. Tennessee provides a striking example in the maps from this post! (their low spending seems generally sufficient to achieve their even lower outcome standards!)

That in mind, should states automatically be disqualified from RttT for doing so poorly on these Essential Preconditions? Perhaps not. After all, these are states which may need to race to the top more than others (assuming the proposed RttT strategies actually have anything to do with improving schools). But, for states doing so poorly on key indicators like effort and overall resources, or even the share of kids using the public school system, those states should at least have to explain themselves – and show how they will do their part to rectify these concerns.

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Published by schoolfinance101

Bruce Baker is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. From 1997 to 2008 he was a professor at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS. He is lead author with Preston Green (Penn State University) and Craig Richards (Teachers College, Columbia University) of Financing Education Systems, a graduate level textbook on school finance policy published by Merrill/Prentice-Hall. Professor Baker has written a multitude of peer reviewed research articles on state school finance policy, teacher labor markets, school leadership labor markets and higher education finance and policy. His recent work has focused on measuring cost variations associated with schooling contexts and student population characteristics, including ways to better design state school finance policies and local district allocation formulas (including Weighted Student Funding) for better meeting the needs of students.
Baker, along with Preston Green of Penn State University are co-authors of the chapter on Conceptions of Equity in the recently released Handbook of Research Education Finance and Policy, and co-authors of the chapter on the Politics of Education Finance in the Handbook of Education Politics and Policy and co-authors of the chapter on School Finance in the Handbook of Education Policy of the American Educational Research Association.
Professor Baker has also consulted for state legislatures, boards of education and other organizations on education policy and school finance issues and has testified in state school finance litigation in Kansas, Missouri and Arizona. He is a member of the Think Tank Review Panel, a group of academic researchers who conduct technical reviews of publicly released think tank reports on education policy issues.
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7 Comments

This is about INNOVATION! And RttT is based on the ‘best’ measures of states’ effort to innovate… to make change… to reach the top!”

The thing is, there is no “top.” The only innovation is the faulty logic of the “reform” narrative.

As your analyses and charts show, what we see is variability–among the “winners” and among that sample compared with the remaining states. The grants sound sizeable, but the amounts are relatively small compared to overall state spending. By the time the grant money gets spread around the effects will be like all other Fed Ed initiatives–same variability with no noticeable improvement.

Anyone who can say with a straight face that the US will have all kids graduate from high school “college and career ready by 2020” should put on a thinking cap and spend a minute or two thinking about “higher education” and “the job market.” With or without a high school diploma anyone can find a place “somewhere,” so we’ve already accomplished that goal. The notion of a “career” is anachronistic in any other than a few professional areas.

Reformers, reform yourselves. How do we “turn around” the wishful ideologs? We don’t know how to do that any more than we know how to “turn around” schools.

Follow the money. From all indications to date there is no reason to think it’s going to be any more successful than Goals 2000 or NCLB.

I agree that this money is likely to have little effect, especially once diffused across these varied settings. Sadly, however, I think that this whole “race” thing and “reformy” logic will ultimately lead to even greater variability than presently exists. I suspect the top states that invest in education and already have reasonably educated populations and industries reliant upon education will stay roughly where they are (though New Jersey is taking a hit right now).

I expect that this whole “innovation without investment” mindset will actually lead to the bottom dwellers getting even worse – spending less, spending it less equitably and doing worse, especially for the highest need children. They’ve now been convinced that nominal reformy efforts based on trivial stimulus funds will fix their education systems and that major investment on their own part is unnecessary. And this is now a bipartisan platform.

In fact, they’ve been convinced by the politicos and reformers that they’re already spending way too much on public schools, that cuts to funding may stimulate greater reform… and that innovation requires no additional investment – beyond these nominal stimulus funds.

I expect political leaders in states like Tennessee, Louisiana, Florida, Colorado and others to run with this idea for years to come, further gutting their public schools and calling it reform. As a result, I expect that those dots in the graphs above will spread even further apart, and that the gaps between populations within those states to diverge as well. I hope not – but that’s certainly what I expect.

Actually, the Hawaii story is illustrative of a state that was convinced by “expert” consultants back in the early 2000s that that were already spending enough/too much and that “reforms” including weighted student funding and decentralization would fix everything.

Futures are hard to predict and your expectations could be right. I don’t expect this whole “race” thing and “reformy” logic to hold. One thing about the “reformers”; they are “true believers.” They have full faith (without any basis) in the logic, and they are going to great lengths to make all aspects transparent. The other thing is; one positive unintended consequence of NCLB is that it raised el-hi education to a national level of media attention.

You will be “following the money” and there is enough of a gaggle of other competent ed bloggers who will join in.

If the school community or the academic community had the capacity to “do better” we’d be doing it. The US Institute of Education Sciences has conducted about a dozen of long-term competently-done randomized controlled experimental studies reporting that none of the elements of the “reforms” have any impact. It”s a travesty that this data/evidence has been totally ignored. Institutional building can’t be done by bumper stickers hyped as reform.

Writing a “winning proposal” is one thing. Implementing it is a whole nother story. Given the variability there is no reform to the “reform.” This has been replicated over and over since the beginning of the “standards and standardized tests” movement. History doesn’t repeat, but it sure rhymes. My expectation is that it’s not going to be a pretty rhyme this time around, but that whatever it is will not go un-noticed.

The NJ media seems to have latched on to the supposed clerical error in comparing years of spending data on the application. I’ve not had a chance to check this out yet, but I expect that it was more a case of intentional deception than a clerical error (not that other states wouldn’t do the same). By comparing the wrong years of state effort to validate their maintenance of effort, they likely covered up their large state aid cuts which actually violate the maintenance of effort requirements. I need to double check both the requirements (which are loose anyway) and what they did on the app… if I get a chance.

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